The Sopranos' Drea De Matteo Joins Charlize Theron In Dark Places

While a lot of hot-blooded men were probably rocking on their heels waiting to see Christina Hendricks play a stripper in Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s upcoming mystery thriller Dark Places, her role was recently changed once the film went into production. The waiting game to see who filled the role hasn’t lasted long, as Exclusive Media announced in Toronto that actress Drea de Matteo will be filling the role. Or drilling the pole, as it were.

While she’s well-known for her TV work, de Matteo hasn’t had a role in a film with this much buzz going for it since she starred in Stephen Winter and Xan Cassavetes' segment in 2009’s New York, I Love You, and if that doesn’t count, then it’s probably 2001’s Swordfish. Or maybe 2005’s Assault on Precinct 13. Either way, we’ve been lucky that de Matteo keeps landing great roles on TV. She’s arguably best known for her Emmy Award-winning work as Adriana on HBO’s classic series The Sopranos, and has had long stints on series such as Desperate Housewives, Joey and most recently Sons of Anarchy, which she’ll come back to when it returns on September 10.

In the film, an adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s bestselling 2009 novel, protagonist Libby Day (Charlize Theron) was seven years old when her mother and two sisters were brutally murdered, devil worshiper style, and she testified that her teenage brother Ben (Corey Stoll) was the killer. As an adult, Libby is confronted by a secret society of crime-obsessed mystery-solvers who want to prove Ben’s innocence, and Libby’s search for the truth takes her all over the place, with a killer not far behind. de Matteo will portray exotic dancer Krissi Cates, who Libby meets along the way, learning that Krissi accused Ben of being a child molester.

Dark Places also stars Hendricks as young Libby's mother, Nicholas Hoult (Warm Bodies, Tye Sheridan (Mud), Andrea Roth (Rescue Me), and Chloë Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass).
It’s currently filming in Shreveport, Louisiana, and is set to hit theaters next year on September 1, 2014.

This is the first of two Flynn adaptations we can look forward to in the next year or two, as David Fincher is currently casting his next project, the thriller Gone Girl, with Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.

Earlier this year, de Matteo filmed Shana Betz’s crime drama Free Ride with Anna Paquin, but there’s no release date set for it yet. Although there are clips out there of de Matteo in a bra-and-panties scene that would fit the subject of this story, this fanmade tribute video is far too excellent to pass up, given the awkward juxtaposition of Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” next to anything.